During the manufacture of some types of beer, a technique known as dry hopping may be used may be used to add more hop aroma and flavor to a beer. Traditionally, dry hopping is done in beer styles like pale ales and India pal ales (also known as an IPA), but dry hopping may be used in other styles of beer as well. Since the hops are not boiled during the dry hopping process, oils are not extracted therefrom and bitterness of the beer is not increased. Dry hopping may be conducted during a time period three to five days before the final beer product is bottled or kegged. The reason for this is to have the hop aroma infuse with the beer without having the aroma fade. Another method is to add the hops to during the secondary (or conditioning) phase about two weeks prior to bottling. This allows the hops enough time to blend with the beer well.
Dry hopping typically involves adding a desired amount of hops into a brewing vessel filled with beer. The hops and beer are agitated and allowed to mix for a desired amount of time to infuse the beer with more hop aroma and flavor. Once the desired amount of time has passed, the hops is allowed to settle to the bottom of the vessel and the beer is removed from the vessel and bottled or move on to a subsequent processing step. The beer at the bottom of the vessel that is mixed with the hops is typically dumped down a drain as inconsumable. Depending on the size of the vessel, dozens if not hundreds of gallons of beer may be dumped for each batch of beer being brewed. This could amount to dozens or hundreds of barrels of beer during an entire brewing run which could amount to tens of thousands of dollars of beer or more.
It would be desirable to develop a beer filter and method of beer filtration that minimizes an amount of beer that is dumped after using a dry hopping technique.